


The shape of letters and names

by glim



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Age Difference, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-15
Updated: 2010-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five moments after the events of series one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The shape of letters and names

_i._

Weeks after they'd returned from the isle, Gaius took to wearing his spectacles more often than he used to. His hands, however, remained steady and strong, able to measure out the finest of ingredients with greatest precision and to examine his patients with an even greater degree of care.

Merlin took to watching him work, hypnotized by the small movement of phials filled and arranged, of powders weighed, contained, and labeled, neat and secure.

Some mornings, Merlin would pause before walking out into the courtyard and trace his fingers over handwritten labels to learn the shape of letters and names.

_ii._

The letter rested, folded and re-folded, creased with frequent reading, tucked between a spell for smoke and one to illuminate the sky during a winter storm. Merlin didn't need to look at it to know what it said, not anymore; he'd memorized it long ago, well-aware that any number of forces could take the letter from him before he learned the layers of meaning beneath ink and parchment.

It was, in so many ways, a recitation of all the things he could've lost, the things he wasn't willing to lose and the sacrifices he wasn't willing to have made for him.

_iii._

"Don't you have business - and a prince - to attend to?"

Merlin ducked his head. "Am I in your way?"

"Not really; you'd best learn some of this. It could be useful someday."

Gaius slid the book closer to Merlin. If he realized that Merlin had been watching him flick through the Galen and not reading, he gave no sign.

A thought and a blink later, the pages fluttered in front of Merlin and before he realized, the text, or an imprint of it, existed in his mind. He blinked again and turned to Gaius with a small "oh."

_iv._

"How long did Arthur keep you out in the sun?"

Merlin shrugged, then winced when the action hurt where he'd turned a brilliant shade of red over his neck and part of his shoulders. "Too long."

"Yes, obviously."

There was some cool salve that Gaius spread over his skin with his usual, careful precision, and an even cooler drink. Merlin kept his fingers wrapped around the cup while Gaius's moved over his shoulders to rub some of the tension from his back.

"Maybe I should learn a spell to deflect it."

"Maybe you should learn to stand in the shade."

_v._

Merlin narrowed his eyes for an intense, split-second at the guttering candles and nodded with satisfaction when the flames rose up, bright and strong.

"Merlin..." His voice was full of reproach, but when Gaius glanced up, a brief smile of gratitude touched the corners of his mouth. "Can you not sleep again tonight?"

"There's something... I don't know." Something strange and tense, made of restless, whispering shadows, in the air around Camelot.

Here, though, there was quiet and candlelight, the scent of dried herbs and worn parchment. Gaius smoothed his hand over Merlin's hair before turning back to his reading


End file.
